


Each Day I Learn Just a Little Bit More

by elrhiarhodan



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: All Aboard The Sebastian/Eggsy Train, Attempted Drugging, Blame EggsyObsessed For This, Doing the Right Thing, Eggsy is a Hero, Harry - Eggsy Friendship, Harry/Merlin Old Married Farts, M/M, Merlin - Eggsy Friendship, Merlin/OFC (past), No SebWin Romance Yet, Off-Camera Nonconsensual Sexual Acts (long past), Sebwin, Secret Child, WOO! WOO!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 12:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18343823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: Twelve years a Kingsman and Eggsy has a decent post-mission routine.  A glass of Scotch, a good steak, and some vigorous sex with a paid professional.  But tonight, for some reason, he breaks his routine after the Scotch and the steak, and heads to a dance club on Old Compton Street in Soho.  Standing at the bar and watching all the pretty boys twirling on the dance floor, he notices someone drop something into a drink left behind on the bar.  A drink belonging to a rather lovely young Scotsman with brilliant blue eyes.The evening might have ended most satisfactorily in a bed, but he'd made the mistake of offering to listen to the young man's story.Or, as Albert Einstein once said, "Coincidences are G-d's way of remaining anonymous".





	Each Day I Learn Just a Little Bit More

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eggsyobsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggsyobsessed/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gloomy Days Turned Into Hopeful Tomorrows](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250760) by [Eggsyobsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggsyobsessed/pseuds/Eggsyobsessed). 



> As I noted in the tags, this is all EggsyObsessed's fault in creating a lovely OMC and fancasting Richard Madden. She'd given me permission to play in her SebWin sandbox, but instead, I decided to riff on the idea of an older Eggsy - just not quite as old as her magnificent version - and a different kind of meet-cute, but with plenty of good single malt whisky and Harry and Merlin as Eggsy's two dads.
> 
> It feels rather appropriate to use a line from the Elton John classic, "This Song Has No Title" as the title for this story.

Eggsy doesn't usually hit the dance clubs after a mission, not for the noise or the mass of writhing bodies, or the boys he could pull with very little effort. He prefers to wind down with a glass of good scotch, a nice rare steak, and maybe a pretty young man who'll disappear in the morning with the stack of hundred quid notes left on a hotel room dresser.

It's something that Harry had taught him - don't go home right after a mission. Give yourself a chance to decompress before reuniting with your loved ones (if you're lucky to have any). He'd made that mistake once, early in his tenure as a Kingsman, while the world had still been recovering from the effects of the SIM card massacre. He'd gone home to mum and Daisy and almost lost it when Daisy started shrieking about something. He could feel himself getting too wound up, too close to just snapping - pulling a Dean, of all things. He'd excused himself without explanation and practically ran to the shop and then paced the length of the platform until the bullet train arrived. He had fidgeted and twitched until he'd arrived at HQ and then made a bee-line for the firing range. 

It had taken the best part of two boxes of bullets before he found his center again. After that, the post-mission session at the shooting range had become Eggsy's routine, at least until Harry had found him there, blowing through paper targets like so many napkins at a chip shop.

Harry, who'd become Arthur upon his recovery and return two years after "dying" in Kentucky, had resumed the role of mentor and had taken Eggsy in hand. He'd told him that the best way (in other words, _his way_ ) to cure the post-mission yips is to indulge the senses, not commit additional acts of violence. A single good drink, a very good meal, and plenty of vigorous sex is how Harry had always handled it, and he'd had suggested that Eggsy give it a try.

Eggsy had been skeptical, but Harry had pushed at him, even providing the contact at a Kingsman-vetted agency for the "vigorous sex" part of the cure. Eggsy had caved, and had been surprised just how well it had worked, especially the sex part. 

And so, for the better part of the last decade, Eggsy's been following Harry's prescription after particularly trying missions. Tonight is the exception. He hadn't thought the job in Marseilles had gotten to him, considering the lack of wet works, but there had been multiple points when he'd been on the brink of failure, including the last three days when his glasses had died and his cellphone connection had been compromised. But he'd stood on his own and pulled it off and came back triumphant. 

Harry and Merlin take him out to dinner to celebrate his good work with Scotch and a rare, dry-aged Porterhouse, but for some reason Eggsy can't quite put his finger on, he declines Merlin offer to place the call to the agency and request the "usual". At the end of the meal, when Merlin and Harry press him to "take care of himself", Eggsy chuckles and tells them to spend less time worrying about his sex life and indulge in a bit in their own.

After the Kingsman cab drops the old marrieds back at the house in Kensington, Eggsy tells the driver to take him to Old Compton Street in Soho. It's a little after ten when Eggsy settles onto a bar stool at a rather notorious gay bar and watches the twinks and bears grind on each other on the dance floor. He feels old and tired and used up, that at thirty-five, his best years are behind him. Truth is, Eggsy knows that's the come-down talking, that tomorrow or the next day, he'll feel completely differently.

A movement at his left catches his attention. It's a hand and it's emptying something into the half-empty martini glass on the bar.

Eggsy reaches out and grabs the hand, squeezing hard until the vial drops on the bar top.

"Hey, let go of me, jackass!" 

Eggsy relishes the surge of adrenaline and pulls at the asshole until he stumbles against a bar stool. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing, nothing - just playing a bit of a joke on a mate, that's all."

"Drugging someone's drink is a pretty shitty joke, you turd."

"Ain't your drink, so what's your problem?"

"You're my problem, dirtbag." Eggsy catches the eye of the bartender, who nods and summons a bouncer. A pity, really. Eggsy wouldn't have minding taking the creep out the back and teaching him a lesson or two. He palms the vial and will take it to the lab - just to make sure there isn't some terrible new drug on the market.

The problem taken care of, Eggsy notices that the bartender has moved off, but hasn't removed the drugged martini. Eggsy signs and picks up the offending glass and tips it over onto a pile of paper napkins.

"Excuse me, but that's my drink. That _was_ my drink." 

Eggsy turns to the speaker and he's greeted by a pair of electric blue eyes and a pair of cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. The carefully trimmed scruff doesn't do much to dispel the youthful appearance of the man or disguise just how stunning he is. Eggsy stifles the frisson of attraction and says, "Your drink was drugged, bruv."

"Drugged?"

"Yeah – you would have been roofied if I didn't catch it." Eggsy shows him the small vial he'd retrieved. "Caught someone dumping this in your glass, said he was playing a prank on you. You got some nice friends."

The young man's eyes go wide. "I'm here on my own. No friends to prank me." 

Eggsy had actually figured that would be the case. "You ain't supposed to leave your glass unattended in a place like this. There are all kinds of disgusting fuckwads out there who'll dump something in it just to see what happens and take advantage of your inebriation." Eggsy can't help but remember the time he'd been roofied at a club and what had happened after. The loyalty test, the twenty-four hours with Harry, the accidental meeting with Richmond Valentine at the shop, and everything else that lead up to the end of the boy he'd been and the start of the man he is now.

"Take advantage. Ye mean rape." Even though the young man whispers, Eggsy's gotten pretty decent at reading lips. It helps in the spy business.

"Yeah. Just trying to be polite."

"Knew it was a mistake to come here. This isn't usually my scene, but friends at home suggested I come here – get the real London experience."

"First time in the big bad city?"

"In London, yeah."

The music, already impossibly loud, gets even louder. Eggsy leans close and says, "I'm about done with this place, any chance you'd like to go someplace a little quieter and talk? There's a decent pub not too far from here – not a place for the tourist crowd."

Blue-eyes gives him a skeptical look. "I don't know your name."

He shouts over the throbbing music, "I'm Eggsy."

"Eggy?"

Eggsy sighs, this always happens. "Eggsy, it's a nickname. Real name's Gary, but I never use it."

"Ah, all right. I'm Sebastian. But ye can call me Seb."

"Nice to meet you, Seb." Eggsy holds out his hand.

Seb takes it, and as the music goes up another notch, he says, "Let's get out of here."

Eggsy nods, holds onto Seb's hand and pulls him through the crowd and out the door. The street is crowded, but the air is cool and clean, and seems practically silent after the cacophony in the club.

"I didn't thank ye. Ye just saved my ass. Literally. So, thank ye very much."

Eggsy waves off the gratitude. "You're Scottish."

"Aye, from Glasgow. Ye got a problem with that?"

Eggsy isn't surprised at the pugnacious attitude. "Not at all, one of my best friends is Glaswegian, though it's been decades since he's lived there."

"Ah, all right. I've never been to London, but I've been to Sheffield and Manchester and Newcastle, and they always rag on Glasgow, like it's hell on earth."

Eggsy's been to Glasgow, and can understand the sentiment. "I've been there. There's good and there's bad, like every city. You should see where I grew up." Not that Eggsy has any intention of taking Seb back to the Estates, a place he hasn't been to since moving his mum and Daisy out nearly a dozen years ago.

Seb nods. "Yeah, exactly." A pair of gaudily dressed twinks bump into them, burst into laughter and scream at them for being old and fat and ugly before moving on.

"I think ye said something about a pub?"

Eggsy grins. "Old Compton Street certainly has its charms."

Seb smiles back and agrees. "Yes, it does. But I think they're wasted on me."

"And on me, too." Eggsy takes Seb to a pub near Golden Square – and as promised, it's more of a local than a tourist destination. "What can I get for you? I don't think they serve martinis here."

"Whisky would be fine."

Eggsy definitely approves. This isn't the place for top-shelf, but they do have a few decent single malts. "Grab a table, I'll get this round."

A few minutes later, Eggsy finds Seb at a table in the corner and quite remarkable, he's left the seat with the back to the wall free for Eggsy. 

"Hope this is all right." Seb seem shy all of a sudden.

"It's perfect." Eggsy places a glass in front of Seb. "Hope you like Laphroaig, they only have the Four Oak, but it's not terrible."

Seb laughs. "Seriously not terrible. My mates once chipped for a bottle of Four Oak for my birthday and got pissy at me when I'd refused to share."

"So I made a good choice?"

"Aye, a most excellent choice."

Eggsy is again struck by Seb's smile, and in the quiet of the local pub, he can now appreciate how the corners of Seb's eyes crinkle and the smile carves deep grooves around his mouth. This is a man accustomed to smiling, something Eggsy rarely encounters in his life. And Seb is more than just pretty – or handsome – he has an interesting face, which Eggsy kind of values more than mere good looks. Feeling a touch awkward by just staring at his drinking partner, he asks, "So, what brings you to London, Seb? Business?"

"No. Bit of a holiday, have to take care of some personal stuff. Family stuff."

"Everything all right? Someone ill?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just some weird shit that I don't think ye'd be interested in."

Eggsy sips his whisky. "I'm generally pretty good at listening. And sometimes sharing your problems with a stranger can help. Gives you perspective or something."

"Hmm, that's true. I think that's why people like to talk to bartenders."

"Or therapists." Eggsy's done his share of time with Kingsman's staff of therapists for the times when steak, Scotch, and a good bang don't help. He stares at Seb over the rim of his glass. "I'm all ears, if you want to tell me.

Seb grimaces. "Ye sure?"

Eggsy nods. "If it makes you feel better, I'll tell you if I get bored."

"All right." Seb fiddles with his glass, but doesn't drink. "My mum died about a year ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks, but it's okay. Come to terms with it, mostly. She'd been sick for a long while and the end had been a blessing. I didn't know my da at all. Mum had always told me she didn't know who he was. She'd gone to a party, met a guy and had a one night stand. She got knocked up and decided that she was going to be a proud single mother. She had a good job, could support me, send me to school, raise me right. She didn't need a man telling her what to do and being another small child without the benefit of actually being a small child."

"She sounds like she was an incredible person." Eggsy can't help but wish his own mother had been that strong.

"She was, until I discovered it had all been a lie."

"A lie?"

"A big fucking lie. She'd always known who my da was, they'd even been married for like three months, until she told him to scram."

"Was he a wanker? Was he abusive?"

"Hell, no. He was – is, since I'm pretty sure he's still alive – a decent guy. He'd paid child support every month like clockwork, with increases every year, plus school fees, always sent money for my birthdays, for the holidays. Always wanted to know how I was doing."

"How did you find this out?"

"My mum had saved his letters. He wrote to her every single goddamned month for eighteen years. And she'd write back, once or twice a year." Seb runs his hands through his hair. "She even kept the envelopes the letters came in. She'd kept fucking copies of her own letters to him. Copies of every check and bank statement. Receipts for all of the presents she'd bought me with his money.

"But he didn't want to see you?"

"That's the fucking kicker, Eggsy. He did. He always wanted to see me, but she'd tell him that it wasn't a good time, or that I didn't want to see him. Made it seem that I was too busy, too selfish. Or that I just didn't care."

Seb looks like he's about to bawl, "But I didn't know! She never told me about him." Seb's voice rises and the people in a nearby table turn to look at him. "Shit, sorry."

"She took your choice away."

"Yeah, she did. I've read the letters a dozen times, a hundred times - practically memorized them - and I don't think he would have tried to take me from her. He always knew where we were – he was mailing letters to her, not sending emails or anything. We'd lived in the same flat my whole life. He was just respecting her choice, I guess. But she didn't give me my fucking choice. Like she was afraid I'd hate her or something. Or that I'd want to live with him instead of her."

Eggsy finds himself riveted by Seb's story. "Would you have?"

Seb shrugs. "Probably not. I loved my mum and she loved me. I wouldn't have left her to go live with a stranger, but I would have liked to have known the truth. It's why I came to London. To try and meet my da. There was only a post box for the return address, but all of the envelopes were postmarked for Mayfair, right here in London. Figured it was time to see if I could find him. After all of these years."

"How did you find out?"

"I was cleaning out her flat – getting it ready to put up for sale – and started to go through her papers, trying to figure out what to keep, what to pitch. Mum had been very organized, but she did keep everything. She'd been an archivist, worked for the university, so I guess it had been natural for her to save everything, to make copies of everything." Seb shakes his head. "Even stuff that she didn't want me to know about."

Eggsy thinks otherwise. "Or maybe she did? Maybe she wanted you to find it after she'd died, maybe she didn't know how to tell you the truth after so many years."

It's fascinating to watch the realization dawn on Seb's face. "How the fuck can ye see that so clearly?"

Eggsy can't help but smile. "Distance, perspective? Like I said, sometimes sharing your problems with a stranger actually helps."

"Yeah, it fucking does." Seb leans back in his chair, shaking his head and smiling. "I've been so torn up about it, feeling so betrayed. My mum was a good person, she'd loved me unconditionally. When I was fourteen, I told her I was gay and she didn't fucking blink. She bought me condoms and lube and told me to never have unprotected sex. Said when I'm older - when I'm sixteen, I could have a boyfriend sleep over - but I'd be better off waiting. She would just prefer it if I wasn't out in some park or club or someplace really dangerous. And I did hold off, until I was seventeen."

Eggsy sighs. He doesn't remember ever being that young, probably because when he'd been seventeen, he'd been out turning tricks on Smith Street for ten quid a pop instead of running Dean's shit. "Then how were you so stupid to leave your drink on the bar?"

"She never warned me about roofies." Seb grins. "But apparently I've got a knight in shining armor to save me. A real Sir Lancelot on a white horse."

Eggsy can't help but grimace. "Not Lancelot, please. How about Galahad."

"Wasn't he the pure and perfect knight? The virgin who found the Holy Grail?"

Eggsy has taken his fair share of ribbing over his title, and made the effort to research his namesake. "Purity and virginity aren't the same thing."

"True." Seb knocks back most of his whisky. "Another round?"

"Sure."

"My treat this time." 

Eggsy watches Seb walk to the bar and admires the view. That ass is really rather perfect. Pert and firm. His cock could be quite happy spending some time there. 

Seb comes back with the next round and asks, "Is everything all right? Ye have a weird look on yer face."

"Sorry, just thinking about something."

"Ye know, I know nothing about ye. Other than yer name and ye prefer Galahad to Lancelot. And yer pretty good at listening to strangers."

Eggsy would like to keep it that way, but unless he spins out a trail of lies – which he's well accustomed to doing – he'll have to share something. "What would you like to know?"

"Start with the usual? What do ye do for a living?"

Eggsy gives Seb the usual spiel. "Vice President for Marketing and Business Development, mostly in Europe and Asia." After a disastrous mission in Prague, where he couldn't sew on a button to save his life, Merlin – then acting Arthur – had made him Kingsman's VP for Marketing. Since Eggsy seemed to have a natural bent for actually selling things, the new title had worked out quite well. Normally Eggsy doesn't use the title, but it's been a while since he's gone out on the pull and he wants to impress this pretty young man. 

"That's pretty non-specific – covers a lot of territory."

"It does. I'm on the road about forty-five weeks a year." 

"I didn't mean about travel, I meant as a job. I've never figured out what someone in marketing and business development actually does."

Eggsy keeps the explanation to a minimum, "It's a fancy term for sales."

"Ah, so you're a salesman?"

"Pretty much. Maybe I can sell you a nice suit." Eggsy winks a Seb.

"A suit?"

"Yeah, I work for a posh tailor on Savile Row." Eggsy doesn't both naming the shop. How likely is it that a young man from Scotland, one who's never been to London, would have heard of Kingsman?

Well, apparently he's wrong. "That shop wouldn't be Kingsman?" 

"Fuck me, but yeah. I've been working for them for about a dozen years. I'm kind of surprised you've heard of it."

Seb looks down at the table. "My da - I think he works there, too. Or he did at one point."

Eggsy has never been fond of coincidence, and Seb's words are making him a little uneasy. "How do you know that?"

"It was in one of his really early letters. He said he'll leave Kingsman, that they'd survive without him. I'd looked up the name on the Internet; the only Kingsman in London is a bespoke tailor on Savile Row. I put the pieces together and it seems he works in IT or something. He always wanted to send me some new computer, something he'd kitted out especially for me."

Eggsy feels like he can barely breathe. He really does fucking hate coincidences. "What's his name? Maybe I know him."

"Don't laugh, but he's called Merlin." Seb laughs. "Funny how we were just talking about Lancelot and Galahad."

"Yeah, funny." Eggsy looks at the glass of whisky and thinks how he'd really like to have a whole bottle right about now.

Seb picks up on Eggsy's unease. "What's the matter? Is he an arse? Do you hate his fucking guts?"

"No, no. Not in the least. Remember that I said one of my best friends is a Glaswegian? I had been talking about Merlin." Eggsy laughs drily. "Had dinner with him tonight - we usually get together when I'm back from a trip." 

Eggsy really can't believe this. That Merlin has a kid, and Eggsy just happened to save him from getting rufied, and now he's sitting in a pub and five minutes ago was thinking about the guy's very pretty ass. Merlin's son's very pretty ass. He's going to go straight to hell for that. 

Seb's jaw drops. "Now you're taking the piss."

"Swear down, I am absolutely not taking the piss. Merlin, he's like - "

"Like what?" Seb leans on the table, his eyes boring into Eggsy's.

"Like a father to me. That's the truth, and I didn't want to say it because it's got to hurt to hear a stranger tell you that your da - someone you've never met - has been like a father to them. And the truth is, Merlin's one of the best people I know, I'd trust him with my life and I'd give my life for him."

Seb just stares. "Wow. Jesus fuck, but wow."

It occurs to Eggsy that this might be a setup, that Sebastian isn't Merlin's son, but an enemy agent looking to gain access to the highest ranks in Kingsman. That the jerk who had dropped the roofie in the drink was a plant – or if not, then just a lucky way for this guy to get to Eggsy. But as the thought crosses his mind, Eggsy has to shoot it down. He'd never been to that club on Old Compton Street and he'd been taken there in a Kingsman cab with a driver as thoroughly vetted as one who would drive for the Royal Family. Eggsy knows George, who's been driving Kingsman agents around London longer than Eggsy's been alive. There's simply no way that Seb could have known Eggsy would be at that club at that moment. 

Eggsy toys with his glass and finishes the whisky in one swallow. "Do you want to meet him?" 

Seb doesn't answer right away. "Ten minutes ago, I told ye I came to London to do just that. To find and meet my da. But now - I don't know." He rubs at the back of his neck. "Now that it's real, that I have the chance, sitting right in front of me, I don't know." 

"How long are you here?"

"Another two days. Have to get back to work soon. The next phase of a big project is starting, and I'm the team leader."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a chemical engineer, I work for Digen Semiconductor. Doubt you've heard of them – we're small, but mighty."

"No, I haven't heard of them. Tech really isn't my thing."

Of course Eggsy's heard of them, Digen is owned by Kingsman through a dozen different holding companies. Kingsman had bought the business in the wake of the Valentine disaster – they'd been one of the very few semiconductor developers who had not accepted a contract from Valentine to produce the SIM cards. Digen had almost gone bankrupt, but after V-Day, had been in an excellent position to resume operations and grow, but the lack of capital had been a major problem. Kingsman had stepped in and bought the company, talking it private and making it into a manufacturing facility for many of the agency's gadgets.

Eggsy fucking despises coincidences. 

"If I did want to meet my da, would ye come with me? Make the introduction?"

"Of course." Eggsy would definitely be there to protect Merlin. 

"So what now?" Seb bites his lip and actually gives Eggsy a flirtatious look.

 _Oh, hell no – that is not happening. Not tonight, not ever._ "Why don't you give me your contact details?"

Seb frowns at Eggsy's deflection, but he does as Eggsy asks. Eggsy pulls out his phone and puts in the number that Seb rattles off. "What's your last name?"

"MacNulty. Yours?"

"Unwin." Eggsy rarely gives out a fake name if he's not on a mission. "And if I'm going to tell Merlin I met his long-lost son, I'll need some particulars." Eggsy gets Seb's mother's name, the address of the flat where he'd grown up, his school, his birth date, and to Eggsy's surprise, Seb gives him his National Insurance Number. 

"Bruv, you're way too trusting. I could completely steal your identity with this."

Seb laughs. "I'm not worth all that much. I think ye could buy and sell me with your pocket change and have a few quid left over."

"Perhaps." Kingsman has been more than generous over the years, and Eggsy rarely spends on himself.

"So, what now?"

"How about I take you back to your hotel and you think about what you want to do – whether you want me to make the introduction, or if you want to hold off."

"Would ye like to come up to my room?" Seb traces a finger over the back of Eggsy's hand. "Or ye can take me back to yer place?"

Eggsy's been seduced by princesses and dukes and some of the most beautiful people in the world, but no one has managed to arouse him so quickly in a very long time. But Seb is – until proven otherwise – Merlin's son. That means he's forbidden territory. "You're lovely, Seb, but no."

"Why?"

"Because it wouldn't be right. How can I face your da after spending the night with you?"

"I guess that's why they call ye 'Galahad'. You're too fucking pure for your own good."

Eggsy wants to protest. He's far from pure and they only call him Galahad because everyone had thought that Harry had been killed. "Oi – I ain't pure, but Merlin don't deserve that." Twelve years a Kingsman and when he's stressed, he suddenly sounds like that chav from a public housing estate.

"Seriously?"

"Seb, you have one spectacular arse, and if you weren't the son of one of my best friends, I'd take what your offering and then some. But you are and that means you're off limits."

"Well, shit." Seb sniffs and twitches his lips, like an annoyed house cat. 

"I like you, Seb. But cards on the table, I'm always going to be loyal to Merlin first."

"And I guess having sex with his son would be kind of weird."

Eggsy smiles, relieved that Seb understands. "To say the least."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Merlin's reviewing the specs of the new chipset for the glasses. Digen has done good work, but then, they always do. One of his best decisions as Arthur had been to buy that company. He occasionally has problems coming up with the right cover story for the tech he needs, but that's a good problem to have.

A bubble pops up on his glasses – it's Eggsy, requesting some face-to-face time. "I'm busy, lad. Can it wait?"

_"Are you saving the world?"_

"No, not at the moment." Merlin's pulled back from routine handler operations, leaving that to a highly trained and much younger staff. He'll step in when the situation requires his specific expertise, but that rarely happens these days and Merlin's happy to spend his days doing what he does best, running Kingsman's R&D.

_"Then it can't really wait. I need to talk to you, someplace private and secure."_

Merlin sighs. As much as he'd rather work on those specs, Eggsy sounds far too serious. "Can ye tell me what this is about, Galahad?"

_"I'd really rather do it in person, Merls."_

Well, at least Eggsy's using that horrible nickname. In the dozen years he's known the lad, he's never been able to break him of the habit of shortening his co-workers' code names – and given names – to single syllables in informal conversation. If something is truly wrong, he'd have called him "Merlin". "All right. Meet me in the parlor next to Arthur's office. I wouldn't mind stretching my legs."

He finds Eggsy waiting for him, fussing with the knick-knacks on a bookshelf. Harry hadn't done much with the space, it's not a room he often uses.

"This is where Chester and I met for the final test. He sat there, smug fucking bastard, and told me to shoot JB. First time I've been back in here since that happened."

Merlin had forgotten that. "Would you prefer to go somewhere else, Galahad?" 

"Nah. This is fine." Eggsy is still fiddling with the bric-a-brac.

"What's on yer mind, lad."

Eggsy turns to Merlin, his expression opaque. "You hate when agents faff about, right? You always tell us to get to the point."

"Aye."

"You appreciate plain speaking."

"Always, and ye're doing a good job of faffing about right now. So, speak your mind, Galahad."

Eggsy actually goes into parade rest, a move Merlin hasn't seen him do since the Lancelot trials. But he doesn't say anything.

"Spit it out, Galahad, or let me go back to work."

"Does the name Sebastian McNulty mean anything to you?" 

"What?" Merlin isn't sure he's heard Eggsy correctly. "What did you say?"

"Sebastian McNulty."

"How do you know that name?" Merlin's heart is in his throat, a flop sweat is soaking him from the base of his spine to the back of his neck.

"I asked you first, but from your question, you seem to have answered mine. The name means something to you."

The whoosh of his pounding heart almost drowns out Eggsy's words. "It does. He's my son. Now, tell me, how do ye know that name?"

Eggsy actually smiles. "Do you know what Albert Einstein said about coincidences?"

"Aye, that they're God's way of remaining anonymous. But I swear, if ye don't tell me how you know Sebastian, I'll cut ye balls off. Is he all right?"

"Seb – Sebastian – is fine. Sorry, I didn't mean to spring it on you so badly, but I wasn't sure how to do it. And I wasn't sure if I wasn't being played." Eggsy pulls out his phone. "Can you tell if this is him?"

Merlin looks at the photo and blinks at the tears. "Aye, it is." His boy – his son – is a grown man. Handsome, too. "Please, tell me how you met him."

Eggsy pulls Merlin over to one of the chairs and pushes him down before taking his own seat. "Remember what I just said about coincidence?"

"Aye – I'm not that old that I can't remember a conversation from thirty seconds ago." Merlin can't stop looking at the photo on the screen. 

"Last night, after dinner, I didn't go home. I ended up in a club in Soho …" Eggsy tells him about a roofied drink and meeting a young Scotsman, and the man telling him about how he discovered the truth about his father.

Merlin nods, what Sebastian had told Eggsy dovetails with the truth. "I'd written to Audra every month from the time she left until Sebastian turned eighteen. When she told me that her son wanted nothing to do with me. I wrote a few more times, but the letters always came back 'refused by recipient' so I finally got the hint and left them alone."

"She'd lied to him as much as she'd lied to you. She'd told him that she'd gotten pregnant in a one night stand, that she never knew your name."

Merlin starts finding gaps in Eggsy's story. "How the hell did he find me?"

"His mother had kept all of your letters; Seb had found them after she'd died."

Merlin had known that Audra had passed away – he'd gotten a letter from her attorney letting him know that she'd left him something in her will. Her legacy to him had been memories of the child he'd never known, photo albums and childhood mementos, everything he'd been denied. He'd much rather have had a single word from his son. "She was an archivist – she would have saved everything."

"That's what Seb told me. And he'd read your letters, memorized them practically. In one of them, you'd said you'd leave Kingsman."

"I can't remember actually writing 'Kingsman' – but I might have. She made me so angry sometimes. Worse than Harry ever could, and that's saying a lot." 

"She knew you worked for Kingsman? What Kingsman really is?"

"Aye, Audra worked here, too. She managed the archives, had been brilliant at it."

Eggsy doesn't say anything, but his silence speaks volumes.

"I suppose yer wondering how an old queer like me managed to knock a lass up."

"The thought did cross my mind."

Merlin lets out a hefty sigh. "It was 2003 and Harry and I had been going through a bad patch. He'd gotten himself shot – nearly died."

"What else is new?"

Merlin chuckles. "Exactly. I'd bitched at him for talking too many unnecessary risks, being a fucking peacock with a gun, he sniped back at me about living vicariously through the glasses feed, that I had no clue what it was really like, as if I had never been out in the field. We'd both stormed off in opposite directions. I got drunk; Audra found me and took me back to her place. I don't really remember much, but woke up naked in her bed and everything smelled of sex."

"She raped you!" Eggsy looks like he'd murder Audra if she wasn't already dead.

Merlin shrugs, not really comfortable with the word. "I guess. Never really felt violated, but yeah – it wasn't as if I knew what I was doing when I did it." Eggsy still looks like he's ready to explode. "Don't worry about it, lad. I'm long over it."

Eggsy still looks furious, but he contains himself. "So, what happened afterwards?"

"About two months later, Audra told me she was pregnant and that she would be leaving Kingsman before the baby is born. She'd said she'd wanted to go back to Scotland, raise her child in the nation of its parents, away from all the violence that Kingsman represents. It's funny, but I'd never questioned that baby was mine. I'd even asked her to marry me, just a short term thing so she would be entitled to the benefits of a married woman. Even though it's the new millennium, people still look askance at a never-wed mother, no matter how mature and how brilliant they are unless they're wealthy or a celebrity of sorts."

"So you got married and a few months later, got divorced? Before the baby was born?" 

"Aye. Audra had left Kingsman and had gone north before she even started to show. The day the divorce was finalized, she sent me a copy of the ultrasound, told me she's having a boy and she's naming him after her grandfather. And I'm not to expect to get pictures and regular updates, but if anything terrible happens, she'll let me know."

Eggsy asks an obvious question, "Did you keep track of them?" 

Merlin shakes his head. "Harry told me I should use the tools at my disposal, but I couldn't. She didn't want me in her life and even though I'd never relinquished my parental rights, I couldn't run roughshod over hers."

"So Harry knows – I'd wondered about that." Eggsy looks thoughtful.

"Aye, I told him what had happened almost immediately. He had been as outraged at what Audra did as ye. But he'd also been the one to talk me through the decision to keep my distance; he understood how impossible it would be to be a father, even a remote one. Though it had been years before I'd told him I wrote to Audra regularly. He'd had a bit of a snit about that, but eventually understood."

Merlin looks at Eggsy's phone again, at Sebastian's picture, but the screen has gone dark. "Does he know you know me?"

"Yeah – that was a bit awkward. I'd mentioned that I work for a posh tailor, and he asked if it was Kingsman. That's when he'd told me you'd written that you'd leave Kingsman in a letter."

Merlin's grateful for that long-ago mistake. "And what did you tell him about me?"

"I told him you are one of my closest mates, that we'd even had dinner last night. That you're practically like a father to me. That you're one of the best people I know."

A bit of warmth blossoms under Merlin's heart. He's often thought of Eggsy at a son – not a substitute for Sebastian – but someone equally dear.

"He wants to meet you."

Merlin lets out the breath he's been holding. He had been too afraid to ask that question. "Thank you."

Eggsy clarifies, "He wants to meet you today. Before he has to go back to Glasgow."

"When?"

"I didn't give him a time, except to say this afternoon. I figured you'd need a bit of time to get your head wrapped around this."

"All right, yes. Good thinking. Will you call him now?" Merlin offers Eggsy his phone back. "Please."

Eggsy smiles, "Of course."

Merlin listens intently as Eggsy makes the call. He doesn't question when he tells Sebastian to meet them at the shop in an hour – which is a little more time than they'll actually need to get into London from HQ. 

Eggsy disconnect and turns back to Merlin, and says, "You need to tell Harry, you know."

"Tonight, afterwards."

"No, now. He's your husband; he doesn't deserve to be cut out of this."

Merlin takes a deep breath. He knows Eggsy's right; Harry would flay him if he found out after the fact. They head next door to Harry's office and before Merlin can open his mouth, Eggsy spills the beans. Merlin's actually quite grateful; Eggsy tells Harry as if it's a formal debrief, the information presented cleanly, succinctly, with no editorializing. That Merlin finds amazing; in a dozen years and hundreds of missions, he'd never heard Eggsy give a debriefing without the occasional inappropriate comment. 

Harry just looks at Merlin and smiles. "Your son has found you."

"Aye – and I need to get to the shop before I miss him."

"We need, Merlin. You don't think I'm letting you do this alone."

Eggsy adds, "I'll be there, too. Seb asked me if I would stay."

Merlin doesn't argue. "Then what the hell are we waiting for?"

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sebastian is as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs as he walks to Savile Row. At every corner, he thinks about calling Eggsy and putting this off, making excuses. But he doesn't. He thinks about what Eggsy had told him about Merlin, about his da, what a good, kind man he is, and how deeply he must regret not knowing his own son.

And now they have a chance to actually meet, so Seb can't turn tail and run. It wouldn't be fair. He turns the corner onto Savile Row and there is Kingsman, almost exactly like the street view picture on Google Maps. He takes a deep breath and opens the door. Thank _fuck_ Eggsy's there, waiting for him. He's standing next to another man, tall and stately, with a blacked out eyeglass lens, and they seem to know each other, but Eggsy just comes over to Seb, smiling and holding out his hands.

"I'm glad you're here."

"Is that my da?" Seb whispers and tilts his head towards the other man.

"No, Merlin's upstairs, waiting for you."

"Oh, good. That dude looks super intimidating."

Eggsy just smiles and leads Seb through the shop, to a staircase. 

"You're coming with me, right?"

"I promised. I'll make the introduction and I'll stay in the shop until the dust settles, but I don't think you'll want me watching you like a prison guard."

"Maybe I would? Need moral support."

"Well, we'll see, alright?"

Eggsy stops in front of a closed door. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be, I guess."

"It'll be fine, trust me." Eggsy knocks and someone says "come in". Eggsy opens the door and lets Seb go in first. There's a tall, bald man standing at the head of a long conference table. _This is his da._

"Sebastian?" The accent is achingly familiar.

"Aye."

"I'm your da."

Seb nods, he's frozen. The words he's rehearsed so many times are utterly forgotten.

"Thank fuck you look like Audra and not like me." The man runs a hand across his bare scalp.

That breaks the ice and Seb laughs. "Ye're not bad, and I think maybe I'd like to have yer height, even if it meant sacrificing my hair."

"But ye might have been blessed with this beak, too."

"It's noble, like those busts of the Romans in the museums."

"Yes don't have to spare my feelings, laddie."

Seb feels himself smiling. "It's okay."

Merlin holds out his hand and Seb takes it. "It's a pleasure to finally meet ye, Sebastian McNulty. I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time."

Seb pulls his da into a hug. "I'm sorry - I didn't know, I just didn't know." The words burst out of him like a sob.

"It's alright, lad. I've got you, I've got you now."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Eggsy watches the pair for too many long minutes before taking himself out of the conference room. He shuts the door behind him and leans back against it, feeling utterly overwhelmed.

"My boy, come here." Harry appears out of the shadows and holds out his arms. Eggsy does the unthinkable and throws himself into that embrace. 

"Am I an arse for being so fucking jealous?"

"No, not at all. You'd been dealt a terrible hand and it has to hurt to see that reunion. And you are the most generous and loving person I've ever met, despite everything you've been through."

"I still have you, right?"

"And Merlin, too. That young man is his blood, but you are a part of Merlin's soul and he'll walk through fire for you. As would I, don't ever forget that."

Eggsy clings to Harry, feeling safe and protected.

And loved.

_FIN_


End file.
